


The Beginning of the End

by SuperLizard



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Explicit Sexual Content, Goliath being a good bro, M/M, Magic, Masturbation, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Panic Attacks, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Talking Animals, storse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26138689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperLizard/pseuds/SuperLizard
Summary: Lancewain Discord Storse Challenge 2020Lancelot's injuries at the end of season one have some interesting side effects, and one of them is that his horse is talking to him.This is definitely not a good sign.
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 145
Collections: Storse Challenge 2020





	1. A horse is a horse of course

"This is not the same as before, is it," Goliath groused to the fey on his back. "This time, you're the one bleeding. It smells like you were got by wolves. I hate it. Throw that other guy here next time. He was heavy but at least he did all the bleeding."

Lancelot's head pounded enthusiastically, his field of vision was dramatically narrow and he felt nauseous.

"There have been a lot of fey children on my back," he chattered on amiably. "None of them so loud as this one. Boy, he really is a chatty one."

The horse's words seemed to overlap with Squirrel's, about the same volume and intensity. Lancelot's head swam, the trees swaying in directions that weren't strictly possible. 

"Then my mum got too busy," Squirrel continued his life story. "She helped feed everyone whose mums and dads passed in the attacks, so I struck out on my own, to fend for myself as a rogue and a scoundrel, picking the pockets of whomever I pleased."

"I think this kid might be full of shit," Goliath opined.

"I think I'm losing it," Lancelot whispered.

"You probably are," the horse agreed. "Hey it smells like oats and a straw bed and mares over this way."

Lancelot turned the horse's head towards Gramaire.

"Yay!" Goliath perked up his ears and lifted his head a little, pleased. "I would really enjoy a good brush down and for a nice human to pick the shit out of my hooves. You smell like you could use a brush down, too."

Lancelot would have nodded, if he could do so without passing out. The wounds in his side and on his head were still bleeding, and he didn't have the strength to keep pressure on either one. "It would be nice."

"What would be nice?" Squirrel wondered.

"To wash up," he clarified a little louder.

The boy made a noise of agreement. "Then you wouldn't smell so bad."

"I'm not the one who smells the worst," he retorted.

"Yes, you do," Squirrel insisted.

"Yes, you do," Goliath agreed.

He frowned and put a hand to his forehead, trying anything to sooth the pounding.

Squirrel shifted and took the reigns out of his hands.

Lancelot didn't fight him, his fingers were too numb to hold anything. 

"If that other fey were here, he would have you to safety already," Goliath told him. "You should have brought him along." 

"'s dead," Lancelot whispered, hoping the boy wouldn't hear.

"Probably," Goliath agreed frankly. "And whose fault is that?"

 _'Mine,'_ he thought.

"Yours. You found the one person on this planet who could show you kindness, and you stabbed him right in the gut for his efforts. Then, as if he wasn't going to die a horrible, slow death of bleeding, you gave him to that nasty Salt man. I smelled that tent from across the camp, you know. The burning."

Lancelot groaned quietly, now his chest hurt in time with the pounding in his head. _'He saw me,'_ he knew, and was haunted by the after image of the bound knight.

"We could rest," Squirrel offered uneasily. "If you're going to be sick."

"Keep going," he rasped. "If I fall, Goliath will take you the rest of the way."

The horse snorted and shook his head. "Yeah that's not happening."

"Please, Goliath," he asked.

Squirrel hesitated before he asked, "Do you usually talk to your horse?"

"No," Lancelot chuckled with an edge of hysteria. 

"You did it all wrong," Goliath advised. "Giving him to them. You could have left together. Built a real life."

Lancelot coughed a little and tasted blood. _'Yes, this is definitely the end.'_

"Maybe you'll see him again in hell," Goliath proposed casually. "You could do it right this time. Instead of fighting, you could just let him mount you."

"This is what going mad feels like," he mumbled to himself.

In front of him, Squirrel gave the horse a little kick. "Hold on, Lancelot," he advised. "We're almost there."

They came out of the forest at a fast walk. The banners of the city lord hung from the walls. Gone were the fey guard from the walls, replaced by humans. But a few carts on the road were driven by familiar faces.

"You there! Where are we camped?" Squirrel shouted.

"At the cliffs, near the beach," a faun informed him. "Your friend is going to fall. Put him in the cart."

Squirrel and the faun gently moved the half-aware Lancelot to the cart and leaned him against the forward wall. Squirrel tied Goliath's reigns to the back of the cart, then scurried back to crouch at Lancelot's side. "Your head is still bleeding."

"I know," he mumbled. The sky was too bright. The sun was back. How long had they been riding? His stomach rolled with the cart. He hoped they would kill him fast when they got there.

"Maybe there's still a chance for oats for me, though," Goliath mused. "Don't get me wrong, I'm going to miss you sure, but you look like you're done."

The cart creaked and bumped along the road. He felt tiny fingers wrap around his, and a tiny, dirty and blood-streaked face hovered over his. "We're almost there, just hold on."

Then Squirrel stood and grabbed hold of the back of the bench, and he was shouting bloody murder and raising an alarm.

Lancelot's tired hand went to his sword, and his other tried to pull himself upright. Whatever it was that was frightening Squirrel, he could die fighting it. Give the boy a chance to flee.

"Lie down!" Squirrel ordered him, holding him down with one foot. "Are you mad?"

"Yes," he answered honestly.

"He's calling for help for you, dumbass," Goliath informed him. "You're dying."

"Mm," he sagged back against the cart again, his vision getting dark.

The cart continued into the camp, but there was a thump as it was boarded. There were hands on him, pressure on his side that made him choke on copper and salt. His vision brightened, but the edges didn't widen.

Then the sun dawned in the tiny spot of visibility he had left. A familiar face appeared. "Hold on, ash man, you're so close. We have you."

He smiled brokenly. "It's you."

"Oh yeah this is great," Goliath opined. "We're definitely getting oats and a brush down. He's going to fix you up nice. If you let him."

"Yes," Lancelot sighed, eyelids very heavy.

"Stay awake," Gawain's voice ordered him. A strong, calloused hand took his, gripped it firmly.

He felt warmth and strength in that grip, like it was somehow flowing into him. His skin felt like he was holding his hand in flames, like he was the fire and all he needed was fuel. Something ignited in his chest and he let it out in his voice, but it came out as a whimper.

"Smooth," Goliath snarked.

"I've got you," Gawain's voice told him. Strong, steady arms lifted him, and his aching head fell against a shapely shoulder, unmarred and perfect. "I've got you, you're going to be fine. Stay awake."

"Anything for you," he promised quietly. 

The world spun. They were climbing down, running, stopping. The sky disappeared under a canvas. The arms released him, a soft mattress under him. Other voices and faces passed in a flurry around him, but that honeyed voice stayed nearby, those calloused hands pressing something cold and soothing to his head. "We've got you. Stay awake. You're home."

Lancelot sighed blissfully. This would be a good death. Hell could swallow him, but he would have this moment to remember for eternity, and it would all be worth it.

"Keep your eyes open," that honeyed voice lured him back. "For me. For the boy. Please."

Pleading felt strange from him, like a tug on something in the very center of him. He forced his eyes open, even though he couldn't see much in the dimness of the tent.

"Closed. He's done for now," a stranger's voice announced. "It's best to put him under, now. He will heal better if he can rest without pain."

That sounded very nice indeed.

"If he goes under, will he come back up?"

"The swelling is already subsiding. If the blood loss isn't too much, he will live."

"Give him mine," that voice ordered. "I know the wizard knows how."

There was a little peace and quiet for a moment. Lancelot concentrated on the wonderful coolness presses against his brow. At least he didn't feel like he was about to vomit anymore.

"I will fetch him," the other voice acquiesced, but the tone was wrong, disgusted, doubtful.

Lancelot figured that he was pretty disgusting. That anyone would do blood magic for him was mind-boggling, but that someone would offer to be the sacrifice in that blood magic? Incredible. 

_'This is love,'_ he realized, his heart stuttering in his chest. _'This is it. This is as the scriptures say. This is the touch of God.'_ He shivered and turned his face, tried to see his face, but it was too dark in the tent. Hadn't the sun just risen? Didn't they have a lamp?

He felt a familiar falling sensation, and managed to first mumble a desperate "I'm sorry," then everything went dark.


	2. Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: blood magic and masturbation

He awoke in a great deal of pain. His head felt like it would split apart. His side burned and everything else was freezing cold. The nausea was back, but his belly cramped around the wound and made it impossible even to wretch. 

But the very worst feeling was the realization that he was completely alone. The sound that came out of him when he realized this was so undignified, but he wished for death too much to want to take it back. Did the last hours even happen? He couldn't form a clear memory of the Green Knight's face, nor his scent, just a voice. Had Goliath been talking to him before that? It was a dream. He had been hallucinating. The reality of it was like being struck in the chest.

The tent flap opened and a tall, tired-looking man in a loose robe ducked in to regard him. "Awake at last?"

Lancelot let out a long, hissing breath. 

"Yes, that sounds about right." He picked around at some things on a table, then came over with a vial of black liquid in his hands. "You're a piece of work, aren't you? They've really destroyed you." He tsk'd for a moment, regarding something about Lancelot. "You're either lucky to be here or you're fated to be here. But you've got a lot of work to do if you want to stay."

"I just want to die," he groaned. 

"Relatable," the man's eyebrow lifted with his wry tone. "But like everyone who ends up where you are, you have a debt to repay." He slapped the vial against his palm a few times, then waved it at him. "Do you know what this is?"

Lancelot huffed. "No."

"'Course you don't. But you're going to drink it anyway, and you're going to get stronger, and you're going to make all this worth it. You owe it to me, and you owe it to him, and you owe it to yourself." He uncorked it.

"Huh?"

"The Green Knight got here just hours before you with quite the story to tell. Fucking wrecked that he failed to save the boy. I thought he was going to kill himself before the next dawn, but then up shows the cart carrying the boy and you. And the boy tells us you killed men from Rome to save him, and carried him to safety." Merlin shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know what to make of you yet, but he seems to. He offered himself for blood magic, just to save you. It might've killed him, too, but that it doesn't seem that anything can kill him." He held out the vial again. "So you're going to drink this, and then you're going to recover, and you're going to be worth it."

Lancelot couldn't feel anything anymore except for the thing his heart was doing. He opened his mouth to answer, but the only thing that came out was an awed, unintelligible noise. "Wha?"

Merlin took the opportunity to dump the vial in his mouth.

The liquid burned all the way down and then through him like a forest fire, shockingly fast and unstoppable. He whimpered and twisted his hands into the cloth under him, gritted his teeth. The burning went from a forest fire to the coldest he had ever experienced, and things inside of him shifted and knit and scarred over perceivably quickly. He wretched, turning his head to void a mouthful of blood and mess that had crawled up from his lungs on its own. Then air returned, cold and wonderful. His heart pounded steadily on his ribcage like it was demanding a door to be opened. His vision sharped and his eyebrows flew up in shock at the sensations weaving through him

He was profoundly and incredibly _alive._

Merlin returned to the table with the empty vial and gave him some moments to process what was happening to him, as if that were even possible. As the burn and freeze subsided, he returned with a towel and tossed it over his lap, covering the most unwelcome and confusing erection Lancelot had ever had in his life. "When you've--" he cleared his throat-- "composed yourself, get dressed and come outside. There are a lot of people who want to see you." He left.

Lancelot panted on the table, a bundle of adrenaline and raw nerves and hot blood and _life._ He took himself in hand and tried to resolve his problem, but something about the blood magic or his own messed up head kept bringing him the smell of oak and steel, the taste of nettle and hot sweat, and the echos of a haunting, honey and gravel voice that he couldn't shake. It seemed like blasphemy to think of him now-- surely he was already damned, may as well earn that deeper circle of Hell. And it felt better than it ever had before, lying in an empty tent in a fey camp, far from everything he had ever known. He was so alive and so was the Green Knight, and his heart was so light with this that when his vision whited out, when he came messily on his own hand and the towel, every nerve in him humming, he almost didn't even notice a difference.

He lay there panting and trying to calm down for what seemed like an impolite amount of time, considering people were supposedly waiting for him. The effects of the magic, he supposed. He cleaned himself up carefully and thoroughly, pulled on the clothes left for him, and ran a hand through the mess of his hair. He took several breaths, making sure he was calm as possible, before he dared to go outside.

It was an afternoon. He didn't know or care which one. They weren't in the camp, but a few hundred yards from it, in a circle of scorched sand. Some horses were hobbled between them and the camp, picking boredly at the dune grass. A little campfire roared in the center of the circle, and nearest to it sat a familiar face, hunched and wrapped in a blanket, looking drawn and exhausted.

Lancelot froze, unsure of how to handle the situation in which the man he'd just imagined was now before him, and he wasn't dying, and HE wasn't dying, and the many oppressive possibilities of the future stretched out before them. His mouth went dry, and his knees trembled.

"Just mount him already," Goliath whinnied to him from his place on the dunes.

Yes, this was what madness felt like.


	3. A Much-Needed Nap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soft boys and understanding!Nimue

Three

He was very good at being in dangerous and unknown situations. Earning safety had been his entire life. So he would do as he had always done: shut up, answer only when asked, and do as he was told.

The fire in his chest flailed against that so hotly that he was afraid of what sounds-- what truths-- might spill from his lips should he open his mouth now.

The wizard waggled his eyebrows. "It's heavy stuff, life force."

Lancelot stared at him helplessly.

He gave a light push on his shoulder. "Go sit down."

He took a few steps on uncertain feet, still in shock about the sharp turns his body had made. Everything was new and strange. The fire was brighter than it should be. The sunset redder, the wind louder, the salt spray somehow sharper and saltier.

The shadows under Gawain's eyes were darker, the wrinkles at their sides deeper, his skin paler. 

Something like gravity pulled from the center of him to the center of Lancelot, and the later was inexorably drawn to him, step by unsteady step, until he was standing much too close. With nowhere else to go, he did as had always been safest, and sank to one knee.

Gawain sighed and smiled. "I am so pleased," he whispered. He held out a shaking hand.

Lancelot took it, kissed the back of it dutifully.

He made a face. "No, don't do that. Come here." He pulled Lancelot gently in for a hug. "I've granted you protection as my ward for as long as it takes for you to be accepted."

"How are you yet alive?" He asked, the heat of the blood magic making him too bold to remain silent. "You were so near to death."

Gawain chuckled, the sound dry. "I did die," he whispered. "But the Hidden had other plans for me." He lifted the edge of his tunic to show off the scar where Lancelot had stabbed him. The skin was smooth and slightly raised, as if the original wound had happened years ago. Satisfied the point was made, he dropped the tunic and patted the sand next to him. "Come here," he whispered, "And tell me your story."

Lancelot obediently sat next to him, pleased to be so near, and related the parts of the last days that he could remember. There wasn't much, so it wasn't a very long story, but during it, he was able to notice that his audience was listing to the side slightly, breathing just little bit less than even. "You're tired," he noted.

Gawain nodded.

"In the last forty-eight hours, he's died, come back from the dead, run the entire way here, and then undergone two blood magic rituals," Merlin pointed out. "He needs a nap. I'm frankly shocked he's still upright."

Lancelot offered his arm. "Please tell me where to take him, so that he may rest."

Gawain laughed silently at him. 

"He's not the only person who needs to see you," Merlin scowled pointedly at the knight, "and he won't go until he's seen that the others won't execute you."

Lancelot frowned. "Don't endanger yourself anymore on my part. I can't accept any more from you. Please."

Gawain patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, but his arm seemed very heavy.

He frowned and looked to Merlin for reinforcement. "Please. Let the others wait. They can have my head when he has rested." 

Merlin nodded to Gawain. "If you can convince him to have a nap, sure the others will not only pardon your crimes but they may award you some kind of medal."

Lancelot knew he had to try. The knight felt like half of him, now, body and soul, and he couldn't let him be harmed on his behalf anymore. "Let the whole world wait," he offered, opening his arms in a pleading gesture. "I promise not to leave your side. Only rest a little."

"I've met less stubborn mules," Goliath commented. "Actual mules."

"I'll be... I'll..." Gawain shook his head. "You're right, I..."

Lancelot moved forward slightly, slipping an arm around him and helping him to stand. Even with this help, he was unsteady on his feet. He leaned against Lancelot, and Lancelot obliged, taking most of his weight and helping him walk to the tent. He leaned Gawain against the table for a moment, and flipped the blankets so that the blood was on the bottom and at the foot. Then he dead-lifted Gawain onto the table and pulled the blanket over him.

Gawain's hand remained tangled in his linen shirt. They shared a long look, the knight fighting off sleep to hold his gaze. 

Lancelot could have stood there looking at him for an eternity. Instead, he patted his hand comfortingly. "I won't go farther than the door of this tent, though an army should try and drag me away."

He smiled at this boldness and released his hold, eyelids growing very heavy. He blinked once, twice, then his eyes stayed shut. After a moment, he relaxed with a deep sigh.

Lancelot marveled at the sound of that sigh. He wanted to know what it tasted like. He reached out uninvited and pushed Gawain's messy hair back from his face, smoothed it down, and memorized the wiry toughness, the reds and golds and greys of it. He lingered a moment later, until he was certain the other half of him was comfortably sleeping.

Then he gathered his courage about him and opened the tent flap to speak to Merlin.

A group of women had arrived in his absence and collected around Merlin. A warrior, a fierce-looking fey healer, and the Wolf-Blood Witch herself.

"He's _sleeping_?" the healer seemed to be repeated what they'd just been told, but with an air of disbelief. "In the middle of the day? Sir 'I'll sleep when you're dead' is sleeping?"

Merlin looked harassed. "It's to be expected. He cut his soul in half again. He didn't even recover properly from doing the same for Nimue."

"This will be the first time I've ever seen him rest when a matter of such importance weighs on his mind," the Wolf-Blood Witch considered. "I would prefer to see him anyway. To know he is well" She turned and locked eyes with Lancelot suddenly.

Goliath snorted and huffed loudly enough to be heard. "Trouble! Matriarch! Give her whatever she wants or she'll kick you and drive you out of the herd!"

Lancelot forced his gaze not to turn towards the horses. "He is resting," he confirmed.

She carefully came over to talk to him, letting the other two women remain behind her. "I hope so. He gave a part of himself for me just yesterday. You'll understand then, that I am driven to see him, and know that he is well."

He did know. And the part of Lancelot that was one hundred percent pure himself twisted a bit to know that she had some sort of claim also. But the part that was Gawain's strength and openness made him feel as if the woman before him, with all her power and presence and poise, was as a little sister, to be celebrated and protected. 

He stood back and held the tent flap open for her, and she walked past him without fear. She went quickly to Gawain's side and grasped his hand warmly, watched him breath for awhile. "I thought he would never sleep." She turned and smiled at him wryly. "He is such a stubborn bastard sometimes. I'm sure you feel it. Now the Hidden have made him practically invincible, he's going to be so smug and intolerable about it."

Lancelot felt his face do something strange, and a noise came out of him. It sounded like a laugh? How strange. "I haven't known him long, but that feels correct."

"It's the blood magic," she confirmed. "It's intense. Parts of his personality will drown you out. I don't know for how long. No one does. My father says perhaps as long as a week, but it's different for every case."

"Your father is... The wizard? And you're the Wolf-Blood Witch."

She nodded. "Merlin. I'm Nimue." She offered her hand.

Lancelot squeezed her fingers and bowed politely.

"You're the Weeping Monk."

"Just Lancelot, now."

"I am pleased to meet you, Lancelot." She smiled again. "He is really in awe of you, you know. You two have hunted each other for so long."

"Yes, I rather like to think we fought each other to a standstill fairly, before I distracted him," he scratched the back of his head in a gesture of embarrassment.

Her smile became very wry indeed. "Yes. Fighting skills. That's what he admired." She gave that noble hand a squeeze and then bent and laid a chaste kiss in his forehead. "I'm pleased you convinced him to rest. Please keep him resting as long as you can. The last days have been an ordeal, but they came attached to a decade of fighting and decision-making and general sleep deprivation. Gawain has a lot of catching up to do."

"I will guard his sleep with my whole being," he promised.

"I know that you will," she nodded, tapping Lancelot's heart and then her own, then pointing to the slumbering knight. "And thank you."

He watched her leave the tent with all the composure of a young queen, and heard her encourage the others to come away from the little auxillary camp. Merlin volunteered to stay, saying something about monitoring the effects of the spell. 

He formed the knight's name without speaking, trying it out. It seemed to fit like a glove.

When Merlin peaked into the tent, Lancelot was curled up on the table next to Gawain, an arm thrown across his chest, his head tucked under Lancelot's chin. The wizard managed half a smile and closed the tent again, giving them some privacy.


	4. Suspension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cuddling and soft boys. Guinevere asks Lancelot his name, which goes about as well as one might expect.

Lancelot woke up first. It gave him the opportunity to collect himself and admire the novelty of his situation. Did death await him outside the tent? Certainly. Whether by execution or exile or long imprisonment, or by trade back to the situation he'd fled. But for this one moment which seemed to hang in the air, still and light as a feather, everything was perfect, and safe, and his heart beat on, a gentle and rhythmic reminder that time was passing.

The pre-dawn darkness was upon them outside, the great inhale before the sun blew out its light golden-fingered onto the waiting earth. The last of the night-things were finding their way home. The constant sound of the ocean rushed somewhere nearby, breaking and retreating and regrouping, charging and breaking again on the immovable shore.

He very, very gently ran his fingertips across the brow before him, tracing the worry lines and the creases at the sides of those closed eyes. 

His companion murmured nothing, turned to bury his head in his shoulder. To seek comfort there.

He indulged in a gentle smile. He wanted to kiss that brow gently, but he knew that the moment would shatter into a thousand pieces soon enough, and the knight would awake, and there would again be the vicious tear between them, and all his sins would fill that canyon, and for all the shouting in the world he would never get across it. Better to rest awhile longer, and enjoy the gentleness of a world asleep.

"So glad," Gawain murmured. It wasn't clear if he was sleeping still or awake or somewhere in between. He shifted again and sighed. "Don't want to do this alone."

He quirked a brow, returned his arm to encompass his chest, bringing him close. "I am at your service," Lancelot breathed, barely a whisper.

His hand came up to rest lightly on that shielding arm. "So tired."

"Rest," he whispered, and stole that wanted kiss.

"Hm," he sighed happily. 

They lay like that for a long time, until Gawain's eyes opened slowly and he smiled a slow, gentle smile that made it impossible to feel caught, even though Lancelot knew that's what he was. 

"I had the most amazing dream," he told him, ignoring how close they were and in a compromising position. "You were here to fight with us. You were unstoppable. My heart could burst to see you here."

He blinked. "You're not afraid?"

He shook his head slightly. "I died and returned. My wounds are gone. The injuries I now receive in the morning are gone by sunset. You could try to do me harm, but it wouldn't stick. And I don't think that's what you want anyway." He squeezed the arm across his chest. "You're free. You're not their animal. You're not an animal at all." His eyes shined anew. "And here you are. With us."

"With you," he corrected shyly.

He smiled wider. "I am so pleased."

"How can you just open your heart like this after what I have done?" His voice broke at the end. 

"Those choices weren't your own. It's plain for anyone to see, who cares to look." He released his hold on Lancelot's arm, but didn't remove his hand. Instead, he stroked soothingly from elbow to wrist. "And this." He looked like he might cry. "This is a dream."

"I have only ever been a nightmare," he laughed dryly.

Gawain blushed a little, just on the edges of his cheekbones. "I have wanted this moment for years. To fight you. To free you. And now with the Hidden's blessing and you beside me, it feels like there can be a future. It's been so long since I could imagine further than a few weeks."

"I will carve out any future you envision from the hide of Time," he promised. "Use me as your own sword."

"I will never use you," he refused. "You are free."

The implication made Lancelot dizzy. He felt exposed. "Then... Then I choose to be as your own sword. At least for now. Please allow me. Command me."

He smiled. "Dear soul. What did they do to you?" He slowly, carefully moved his hand to Lancelot's face, palm to cheek. "You have a place at my side."

Lancelot closed his eyes for a moment and leaned into that hand, enjoying the warmth and the unfamiliar sensation of affection. When he opened them again, he couldn't miss the thin, tight-strung look of a parched man gazing at water he can't have.

Gawain sighed again, but this time it was closer to despair. He sat up and gathered Lancelot closer, wrapped him in a hug. "Dear soul, dear soul." He kissed the top of his head chastely.

Puzzled but unwilling to miss even a drop of offered affection, he accepted the embrace and worked out how to return it. He felt so warm.

They sat together in the suspended reality of the pre-dawn tent until the grey seaside morning became difficult to ignore. But when the tent flap pulled back and Merlin appeared in the portal looking vaguely apologetic, the spell was broken. Lancelot pulled himself reluctantly back to his own center of gravity and found his knees to be weaker than he remembered, his spine more rigid. Everything was colder. 

Gawain slipped down from the table after him and put a hand on his back, guiding him and reassuring him at the same time. "You're here with me. They cannot hurt you. I will make them understand."

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, but it instead it took the cold to the very center of him. There was a gap under his ribs. His stomach climbed to his throat.

They went out, Gawain first and then Lancelot. His hand never left the small of his back, his gaze always bent toward him. In the circle of blasted seagrass and scorched sand, the campfire was dying to embers. Around it waited the wizard, the three women from before, Squirrel, a well-armed human man, and an even better-armed human woman.

Gawain spoke first, his voice in front of them like a sword, closing the triangle of combat and offering a great effort to pass through. "I have claimed this ash man as my ward, under my protection. What is done to him, is done to me. What he does, falls upon my head, until which time he is again well enough to free himself from this arrangement."

"You think him sick?" Arthur demanded.

"I know him to be injured in the soul and sorely misused by the church. I have freed him so by tradition, he is my responsibility." He turned to Lancelot and asked quietly, "Will you show them your scars?"

Lancelot obeyed as if it were an order, shaking hands unlacing his shirt and pulling it over his head, then shedding the shift underneath, until he stood before them like a creature pulled out of its shell, revealing what seemed wrong to reveal.

Several of the others sucked in a breath audibly. Pym clapped a hand over her mouth and made a squeaking noise.

"T-t-these are by my own hand," he tried to explain, feeling the weight of their disgust fall upon him. "I h-h-had to cleanse m-my sins I'm a d-d-demon--"

"No," Gawain told him, hand returning to his back to steady him. "No more of that. You're home now."

He twisted his hands into his shirt and shift, shaking like a leaf. Terrified, half-naked, laid bare before potential enemies, cold, hungry, gut-wrenchingly isolated--

Surprisingly, it was the human woman who stepped forward, her head tilted forward so she was shorter, and a soft, calming smile on her face. She stood a little closer and spoke with the softest, most comforting voice he had ever heard, the voice a mother might have. "He's right. You're home now."

Lancelot looked up, shattered. 

"The Weeping Monk cannot be your only appellation," she offered, trying to get him to relax. "What is your real name?"

The dam broke, and Lancelot burst into tears. He threw himself onto the sand, hands and knees, and made himself as small as possible.


	5. One nightmare to the next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camp moves back to the forest. Lancelot gets a job. Goliath has a secret.

His mind kept running over and over the same piece of music. It wasn't a particularly good piece of music, nor did it seem relevant to what was happening in any way. Just some music he'd heard in a chapel dozens of times. It filled the gaps between the pitying and the hushed tones of the people who came and went from the tent, the quiet when he desperately wished for sound. It was short and repetitive and driving him mad. Or maybe he was hearing it because he was already mad.

Gawain had helped him to his feet and back into the tent, forbidding anyone else to follow until he was sure he was safe by himself. Then he stood in the doorway of the tent and discussed his fate with the others, loudly enough that he could hear, but he was such a wall between them and him that Lancelot didn't have to process their gazes or their questions. He could just hide behind the Green Knight and let it all rush around them.

He was beginning to understand why the sky man was such a legend. 

It was a long time after they were alone, before Lancelot recognized that the music he was humming was the only sound left. He stopped abruptly, and it died away in his head. He lifted his gaze and sought out his protector.

Gawain was sitting on the sand right next to him, watching the door and simply waiting.

Lancelot was no longer certain if he was welcome in his personal space or even indeed in his life, so he offered a tentative, "I'm sorry. I don't-- I'm lost. I don't know what to do."

He gave him a sad smile and patted him on the shoulder, keeping his arm there, an offer.

Lancelot wasn't about to pass that up. He scooted closer, tucking himself under that arm and wrapping both arms around his middle.

Gawain's eyebrows went up briefly, surprised by how tactile the battered fey was. He rocked him ever so gently for a few moments. "It's overwhelming, isn't it? This must be so different from what you're used to."

Lancelot hummed and closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of a heartbeat so close by.

"I don't know how much you heard. You're going to stay with me as you heal. We will evaluate the situation every other day. No weapons unless there is some pressing need for it."

"...heal?" He asked after he was certain Gawain was done talking.

Gawain pulled him closer, and he was almost sure he heard a hitch in his breath. "They hurt you, Lancelot. They hurt you here--" he gently tapped his forehead. "And we have so few healers left who can address wounds of the mind. Pym agreed to seek one out and present your case, but it's up to them whether they will receive you, and..."

"And I'm the weeping monk," Lancelot finished the sentence. "I've destroyed so many lives. Who would want to help me, but you."

Gawain pulled him into a full hug, and now Lancelot was certain he was crying. "Everyone who sees you now, has understood. Even the humans. All of them want to help you. It's going to be hard for you, but you're home now and we are with you."

The magnitude of it was not lost on Lancelot. "It would be easier to simply die."

"NO." His voice hardened in time with every muscle in his body, and suddenly the hug was more like a shell, a shield around him. "Let this be my one and only order to you. You will survive and you will try." When he unwrapped him enough to look him in the face, the look of worship he found there squeezed his heart uncomfortably, so that he thought he might break apart. "Promise me."

"I will survive and I will try," he repeated obediently.

"Try what?"

"To heal in my mind," he said, but what he meant was _to love you._

Gawain smiled but it was strained somehow, and his eyes were infinitely sad. "Thank you."

"Can... I'd like..." He was forming words but they didn't lead here he wanted them to. He didn't know how.

He waited patiently, infinitely patiently, heart-breakingly patiently.

"I..." He frowned.

"What do you need?"

So much. Obscenely much. His skin itched and he was so cold. Hadn't he given the right answer? "What you did before... Before the shouting?"

Gawain pulled him back into a hug as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

"Yes," Lancelot sighed.

"This is a hug," he explained, his tone half amused and half destroyed. "We do these all the time with people we trust and like."

"Do you trust me?" 

"I do."

"You do hugs all the time?" He sounded fascinated.

"Well. Not ALL the time, but whenever we want to express affection and support." He changed it up, and stroked Lancelot's back comfortingly.

He made a quiet noise of approval.

They sat like that for a long time, Lancelot marvelling at the warmth and safety, and Gawain pondering the nature of evil.

\--

They moved the camp at the latest possible minute, to give the injured the best chance at recovery. There were many covered carts to protect the wounded from the elements, and healers rode with the most sure of cases. It would not have been unreasonable to hide Lancelot in a covered cart to avoid the stares and hatred of the fey.

But that's not what happened.

Instead, Lancelot rode with Gawain as he made patrols along the left side of the caravan. He was dressed in a simple shirt that left his head, arms, and a bit of his shoulders exposed, which should have made him nervous, but having an assigned task and a purpose quelled most of his fears.

Until they found themselves riding next to a cart full of children.

The children stared at him, openly suspicious. One of them spoke from the group, but he couldn't tell which one. "Why did you kill my momma?"

Lancelot bowed his head. Didn't look at them. "They told me to."

"The red ones?"

"Yes."

The children seemed to sense that he wasn't going to hurt them right now, and became bolder. "Did you want to?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "It felt bad but they told me it was good."

"Are you going to kill us?"

He looked at them finally. All of them under the age of six. All of them with the haunted look of innocence lost. "Never."

A little moonwing girl in the back of the cart leaned against the edge and stretched out her arms to him. "Pick me up again," she ordered.

He quirked a brow, confused, but slowed Goliath and reached out to catch her before she fell out of the cart. He held the child in the crook of one arm. "I can't carry you the whole way," he told her gently.

"You carried me away before," she insisted, holding onto his neck. "When I was little."

His field of view narrowed. He caught a sudden chill. He smelled smoke and heard screaming in the back of his mind.

"Hey," Goliath shook his head. "Ease up on the reigns, friend."

Lancelot dropped the reigns and let Goliath follow after Gawain's horse. With both hands he cradled the tiny girl and rode the flashback though the memory he thought he'd buried. Taking the girl from the tree branches that formed her crib. Carrying her far from her treetop village and tucking her in a hollow next to a road, where her cries could be heard by careful travelers but not by the monks burning her home. Where the wood was damp enough that the flames wouldn't reach her.

When he blinked again, the girl was fast asleep in his arms, and Gawain was riding close at his side. The Green Knight reached over take Goliath's reigns and lead them close to the cart again. He gestured for one of the older children to take the girl.

"Green Knight, sir," one of the children spoke up. "Is he going to be okay?"

Gawain shrugged. "No one knows. But let's hope so, as hard as we can."

The child nodded resolutely.

Gawain tugged Goliath's reigns and tapped his heels on his own horse's sides.

"Fuck off," Goliath grunted.

Gawain's horse pranced a bit, confused why Goliath wasn't following.

"May I stay here," Lancelot requested, finally making eye contact with Gawain.

He raised an eyebrow. "Will you stay alert if you do?"

He nodded once. "I will protect this cart. These children."

Every child in the cart craned their heads around to stare at him with wide eyes. It looked a lot like hope on their faces.

Gawain released Goliath's reigns. "Then Squire, this cart is your assignment. Protect these children with your life." 

Lancelot snapped into work mode, senses sharp and nerves alight. Goliath brought his head up and his ears snapped backwards, full attention on his rider. They looked fierce and proud together.

Gawain beamed at him, then tapped his horse into a faster walk to make the rest of the rounds.

"Yes, he definitely likes you," Goliath mused. "I bet he doesn't let you out of his sight. He gave you a proper brush down, didn't he? You smell like him."

 _Shut up,_ Lancelot willed the voice to stop. _There's children present, what is wrong with you._

"They can't hear me," he chewed his bit and swished his tail.

"Bloody horse," he grumbled under his breath.

"Sir knight," the child from before spoke up after awhile.

Lancelot spared him a sideways glance but didn't stop monitoring their surroundings. "I'm not a knight. I'm just Lancelot."

"Sir Lancelot," the child undercorrected. "That's... Not a horse."

He looked at the child this time. A little cliffwalker boy.

"I heard you call him that, sorry. That's not a horse."

Lancelot looked at Goliath, then back at the boy, offering nothing.

"That's a nightmare," the boy told him matter-of-factly. "He's a forest wraith."

A hush of excited whispers rolled through the cart. 

He raised one eyebrow as far as it would go, not sure if the child was telling the truth or messing with him, as children would sometimes do. _Is this true?_

Goliath swished his tail again. "Oh sure, I've carried you around for ten years and never aged a day, never been shot or stabbed or burned, and on top of that we've been chatting for days. But sure, you're surprised I'm magic. You're a loon."

Lancelot supposed that was probably true.


	6. Knight of the Cart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The column resists an ambush. Lancelot becomes the hero of many small children. Goliath is a stand-up horse.
> 
> CW: canon-typical violence

He smelled them before they arrived. He schooled his voice to calmness and called Gawain over to him. 

"They're waiting for us at the top of the hill, in the woods. If we stop, they will come down on top of us. If we keep going, they will attack from both sides. I can't hear any heavy weaponry, just men on horseback and foot. Probably archers." He spoke in hushed tones so the children would not hear.

Gawain nodded. "Stay with the cart. Protect the children."

He nodded. 

Gawain trotted off as if continuing to make the rounds, but gathered a little party about him from both flanks and rode to the head of the column. To a scout, it would look like he was reinforcing the front of the column as they headed up the hill, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But instead of forming up, they handed off reigns, slipped off the horses, and flowed into the woods like water.

Lancelot's stomach turned as soon as he lost sight of his protector, but he held down his breakfast. He had work to do.

"Children," he spoke with an urgent tone but a conversational volume, giving nothing away. "Lie down as if you're tired, and close your eyes. Pull as many blankets over you as you can. Push those grain sacks to the sides and stay low behind them."

The children moved soundlessly, their voices stolen away by necessity and fear. In moments, it looked like a cart full of supplies, not passengers.

He scanned the woods on either side of them. Farther ahead, he heard the cadence of shuffling change, then someone shouted in surprise. 

Riders on either side of the column drew closer around carts with passengers. Some brought up shields, some drew bows and aimed into the woods. Lancelot drew the sword Gawain had returned to him just in time to slap an arrow out of the way. It was aimed at him, he noticed, not the cart. 

More arrows zipped out of the woods, aimed at passengers and fey guard alike. Many broke off and charged into the woods, some with arrows already sticking out of them. 

The scouts were armed.

Lancelot picked his feet out of the stirrups and climbed to crouch on Goliath's back. _Just like old times, friend._

Goliath chomped on the bit and lowered his head out of arrow range, his ears laid back tight across his skull. "I'm used to us being on the other side, but I'm not complaining. These kids are cuter than paladins." He trotted a bit ahead of the cart, putting some space between them and the innocents.

Lancelot stood as upright on the saddle as he could get and roared wordlessly at the woods. This had exactly the desired effect: arrows stopped flying at the fey guard and flew at him instead. He slipped a foot off the side of the saddle and caught it on the stirrup, dropping beside Goliath and letting most of the arrows sail over their heads to stick in the far side of a cargo cart stacked with sacks of grain. The lower arrows he knocked to the ground with the flat of his blade.

Goliath snorted as he pulled himself back into the saddle properly and took the reigns in one hand. He stamped the earth impatiently. The carts were stopping. "At least the horses haven't bolted yet."

Lancelot listened to the chaos in the woods around him for a second, then turned right in time to see several red-cloaked men charge out of the woods, heading for him specifically.

Goliath danced to the side and then kicked out with his back legs, shattering faces and skulls and snorting gleefully. "Fuck you and fuck you and also fuck you."

Lancelot took care of the ones smart enough to come round to the front of the giant kicking horse. It was over quickly, and the remaining fey came back from the woods covered in blood mostly not their own. From his quick count, they hadn't lost a single man after the initial arrow attack.

The chaos in the woods at the top of the hill had changed tambour from surprised rage to panic, then died to silence. A long moment passed. At the top of the hill, a fey guard who was definitely not Gawain appeared on the road and whistled for the caravan to proceed.

It took an inconveniently long time to get the injured into the carts and the horses settled enough to pull forward again. Lancelot checked over his cart and its precious cargo. Arrows were stuck to the sacks of supplies on either side, but only shattered wood had fallen on the blankets. The children hadn't made a single sound.

He pulled the blanket back and they all still lay huddled as low as they could get, eyes squeezed shut, some with hands over their ears. He collected a breath and called to them with as calm a voice as the adrenaline would allow. "It's over now. They've gone."

"Gone?" The little moonwing girl squeaked, sitting up in fright. "Are they going to come back?!"

Lancelot couldn't help but smile a little. "No, these ones won't go anywhere ever again."

"Sir Lancelot's nightmare kicked them all in the head," the cliffwalker boy reassured them. "Pow pow pow. They are very dead."

Goliath snorted and tossed his head proudly. 

"Sir Lancelot," another child asked, "Are you going to stay with us the whole way?"

 _Now_ the occupants of the cart began to panic. 

"Hush, hush," he told them. "I will stay nearby until we are camped."

"And after, will you stay nearby at the camp, to protect us?"

He chuckled softly. "You will be safe there. You won't need me."

They summoned the group unity to stare at him as if he were insane.

"Their camp was never safe," Goliath nickered softly, "because we were always hunting them."

The charm of the situation vanished. Lancelot couldn't suck in enough air to answer right away. He nodded. "I will guard you as long as I am able."

The children cheered and giggled, and waved their arms to be picked up. 

He took the time to lift each of them out of the cart and pat them on the back, and let them pat Goliath's neck, and place them carefully back with the others. All fifteen of them. When he heard someone approach, he looked up, expecting Gawain.

Instead, Arthur was watching him carefully from the back of his own horse, expression guarded but tension pulling at his brow.

Lancelot felt the sky fall down on him again.


	7. Remains of the fey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: injury, blood, panic, angst.

Lancelot promised the children that he would still be with the caravan, then followed Arthur up the column, up the hill, and into the woods. He smelled blood and the bowel-release of recent corpses over the loan and pine smell of the forest and the horse smell if the caravan. After a few steps, he was able to guide himself the rest of the way by a sound he'd heard before.

Gawain was screaming.

Lancelot approached slowly, uncertainly, taking in the situation. 

He was on his feet, though how exactly was anyone's guess. A mess of blood, dark and thick, poured from the front of his armor with every panicked jerk and step that he made. His eyes were wild, glassy, and his skin was pale. He had a knife in one hand and his sword in the other, turning this way and that, alternating between screaming in rage and pain, and swearing under his breath.

Lancelot kept his hands open and in front of him, but continued to approach. "It's over," he told him in what he desperately hoped was a calming voice.

Gawain's gaze fixed on him, and for the moment he didn't seem to recognize Lancelot, but the Weeping Monk. He stopped screaming, at least.

"It's over." 

"I cannot go back there," he panted, eyes focusing and miraculously holding fast to him. "I won't last again."

"You're not going back to the kitchens," Lancelot assured him, moving closer. He was within sword-reach now, and knew that the fey in front of him was fast enough and brutal enough to end him, if he so chose. "All of that is over, forever."

"Yes, it is," Gawain agreed miserably. His knife hand moved--

Lancelot dove forward and slammed into him, knocking the sword out of his hand and seizing his knife hand before the blade could find its target in its wielder's own neck. They slammed into a tree, the knife dropping out of Gawain's hand. Gawain screamed again, then choked on a mouthful of blood.

Lancelot stepped back and caught him as he collapsed, adjusted his center of gravity, and pulled him back several steps before guiding him to lay on the carpet of leaves. "He needs a healer," he shouted, without looking to see if anyone was running. He pushed Gawain down by the collarbone and held him there as he choked and wept. His other hand began hastily untying pieces of armor and tossing them away. When the chestpiece came away, Lancelot was able to see the trouble clearly. 

Three arrowheads were lodged in him, two in the chest and one in his abdomen, under the ribs. The flesh around them was sliced cleanly in a suspiciously three-sided pattern, with bits of bone sticking out of each. Lancelot knew that pushing them all the way through would tear a hole through vital organs, and pulling them out would leave a gaping hole. He would bleed out even more quickly, blessing of the Hidden or not.

He took his knife from his belt and used the tip to fold back the flesh around one of the arrowheads, extracted a bit of bone, and then grasped the remainder of the broken shaft, releasing Gawain's collar to do so.

Gawain had stopped moving and was lying very, very still, his gaze a thousand miles away. He didn't make a sound apart from the wet struggle of breathing.

Lancelot pulled the arrowhead out-- a barbed, iron pyramid affair-- and tossed it aside, pressing the wound together and holding pressure on it as he heard footsteps approach from behind him. He didn't look the healer in the face-- didn't want to scare him-- and instead allowed him to take over applying pressure. 

The second arrowhead came out in much the same way, with tiny fragments of bone and muscle stuck to the barbs. When Lancelot's blade met the flesh of the last wound, a shudder worked it's way through Gawain's frame. Then another. A third followed on its heels.

Lancelot panicked, and paused to look at Gawain's face, still staring into the forest canopy, blood now bubbling out of his mouth with every breath.

"He will live," the healer told him. "Keep going."

"But--"

"It's shock. The best you can do for him now is to finish the work. Or move and I will." The healer impatiently took the knife out of Lancelot's hands and shoved him out of the way, digging the last arrowhead out and pressing the wound together.

Lancelot felt every shudder as if it were his own body convulsing. He put his hands on either side of Gawain's face, making more of a mess with the blood, and frantically tried to make eye contact. "Look at me. You're safe now. Look at me."

A glimmer of recognition seemed to pass through his eyes before they rolled back in his head and he fell still.

"No," Lancelot cried. 

The healer slapped his arm. "He's alive yet. When this wound closes, roll him onto that side so he doesn't choke on the blood." He stood to go.

"Wait, where are you going?!" He turned and snagged the healer's sleeve.

"I have four other wounded to see to, and they haven't got the blessing of the Hidden to heal them. They just have me." The healer shook him off and left.

Lancelot fought to control his own breathing. Panic wouldn't help them now. He checked Gawain's pulse-- fast and weak, but steady. He watched the wound on the right side of his chest close, clotting and knitting and stopping. He rolled Gawain onto his side as he'd been told, hitching his knee up to take pressure off the gut wound. 

Ah. The gut wound was just where Lancelot had stabbed him.

He looked at the lines of fear and rage still twisted into the exhausted features of his only friend, and felt his heart skip a beat. _I did this. This is my fault._

"Were you there with him?" Arthur's voice fell on him. "Were you the one that gave him those scars?"

Lancelot bit his lip miserably, tears welling up unbidden. "I was with him in the beginning. I don't have the constitution for torture."

"He didn't either," Arthur sounded a little less disgusted, but still furious. He stood over the two of them for a moment. When he gaze fell on where Lancelot had fit his hand into Gawain's, his face softened. "You didn't know what was going to happen?"

Lancelot closed his eyes and bowed his head. "I wish that had been true. I didn't know he was a person. They told me we're demons, not people." He bent close and listened to his breath becoming clearer and more steady.

Arthur studied them for a moment more. "I don't know if he can die. But you are going to make sure he doesn't kill himself."

Lancelot nodded. "I will serve him all my days." 

He didn't see the man smile at them, and barely noticed when he left.


	8. The rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: panic, blood, description of torture
> 
> Gawain refuses to drown. Lancelot throws him in the deep end.

The dying light outside the tent cloth made everything red and gold. The colors of twilight or maybe the fires of hell. He didn't know if he could get through another night.

The pit where his eye had been dripped gruesomely, slime and blood trickling from between his eyelids and down his face, cooling in the air, making the burning, cramping muscles of his face a little more bearable. He honestly expected more blood from the wound, but he wasn't an expert in eyeballs extracted so carefully, having only seen them come out in pieces on the battlefield.

His chest ached, his heart tired of pounding and his lungs full of fluid. Yet they kept on working. He wished they wouldn't. Whenever the tent opened again, he knew with a twisting, sinking certainty, they would bring Percival in next. They would hurt the boy, and his cries for help would make everything else seem like a flesh wound only, and it would be his worst nightmare again, staying silent as another was tortured to save those who didn't have to die.

His chest seized, and he fell apart for the first time since he first saw death on the battlefield. Human evil was too big, too crushingly inevitable for him to fight, and yet that's all he had ever done. Distantly, the warrior in him knew that he needed to have this panic now, to expel everything still soft and living in his heart now, so that when they brought his boy into the tent, he could do his best to look brave, to do whatever he could to comfort the boy through the pain he was about to endure, because of him.

So he shook and cried and snot and spit joined the blood from his nose and mouth, and tears stung his eye socket, and he aspirated more blood into his lungs, when he was alone in the tent and it wouldn't matter to anyone that his seams were opened and he was leaking out of himself.

A large, strong hand wrapped around his. Another laid itself against his cheek, thumb gently brushing against his cheekbone. It should have been agony, but instead it was divine. He opened his good eye, and a familiar, ash-streaked face hovered over him. 

"Stop them from hurting my boy. Stop them."

Frustratingly, Lancelot's face only seemed to hold pity, not any resolution to act. 

He thumped his head against the wood behind him. Here he was falling apart during his one chance to convince the monk to take the boy to safety. He was going to be the death of everyone who depended on him if he couldn't get his shit together.

"No, don't do that. Be still," Lancelot advised, cradling the back of his head in his hand. "Percival is safe. You're safe. I am with you now."

Gratitude flooded him to his very toes. "End me," he ordered. "I'll slow you down. You have to get away from here."

"Ssh," he whispered soothingly. He moved a hand back to his face, stroked very gently over his closed left eye. Then he reached down to pinch his leg over the knee. "We're away. You are whole of body."

Gawain startled, thumping his head accidentally this time. Was he horizontal? Why was the ground wooden? He could feel his legs? He felt cold all the way to his bones.

Lancelot waited patiently as he came back to himself.

"When are we?" He asked, shivering suddenly.

"October the twenty-first."

"Where are we?"

"In a cart, in a new camp on the side of a forested hill. The cover is very good here, even the smoke of campfires doesn't pierce the canopy. Kaze chose it three days ago, after the battle of the beach."

"Percival?"

"Safe. Sleeping... Somewhere. Probably up a tree."

Gawain took a deep breath, but embarrassingly the air seemed to get deep enough into him that in unlocked a door, and suddenly more tears were rolling out of him, heaved up from the deepest well of his being. He was cold and scared. 

Lancelot held him down with a hand on his collarbone, slipped his other arm under his knees, and lifted his legs halfway, folding them up. 

He felt incredibly vulnerable, completely at the mercy of the emotions crawling out of their cages, the doors he had never intended to open now loose on their hinges, bridges between parts of himself that he had burned without a second thought were now irrelevant as panic and grief pushed across every gap. His hands flew up, twisting in Lancelot's shirt, and he struggled to get away, to sit up, to compose himself.

"No." Lancelot resisted his grasp. "Feel it. Feel it before it kills you."

Gawain roared at him, or at least tried. He stopped struggling against him and instead grasped harder, anchoring himself to the only thing in the universe that didn't seem to be tilting wildly. He was drowning in himself.

He shifted, leaning closer and adjusting his arm so it was a weight across his sternum, restraining but also comforting, stable.

He cried for a long time, the kind of uncontrollable, wracking sobs of an inconsolable child. 

When he was truly exhausted, and the sobbing died down to shakes and quiet tears, Lancelot gently released him and guided him to sit up. Instead of encouraging him to compose himself, he drew him into an embrace and just held him.

"H-how did you know? I didn't even know," he whispered.

"Yes you did," Lancelot answered simply, not an accusation. "You were ignoring it heroically, though. Until you couldn't anymore."

"How did you know to... Do that?" He wondered. "To... Unlock me?"

Lancelot shook his head. "I don't know. I felt it. The gap between there," he laid a hand on Gawain's heart, "And here," he laid that hand low on his belly, where that fateful blade had laid out both their futures.

The intimacy of everything became dizzying. They clung to each other anyway.

"I'm so tired," Gawain admitted after awhile. "I cannot be of any use to anyone like this."

"We're in it together, now," Lancelot told him. "We have only to work for the future."

He smiled and finally rested his head on Lancelot's broad shoulder. "I am so pleased that you are with me." But what he meant was very different.

He heard what he meant, though. "I am also pleased. But if I am one day gone, you will carry on anyway."

Gawain ran a hand over his chest, where the arrow wounds were closed but still tender, bruised. "I don't seem to have a choice."

\---

The next morning, he was overcome with what Lancelot suspected was a petty insecurity, but Gawain insisted was strategic image maintenance. 

His eyes were puffy from crying and he was certain everyone in camp had heard him screaming like a child. The shame was unbearable, so he concentrated on something else. "I'll go out shirtless," he decided, "so they'll look at my scars instead of my face."

"You mean, they'll look at your chest," Lancelot corrected.

"Is there anything so bad about that?" He grinned crookedly. "I'm not so horrible to look at, and these new scars will be impressive."

He quirked at eyebrow. "You're going to frighten the children."

He shrugged. "Not as much as you."

"The children like me," Lancelot pointed out. "Which is odd, considering I killed most of their parents."

"Your words, not mine," Gawain excused himself and went shirtless out the covered wagon. 

Lancelot heard the first reaction before he could follow.

"What the fuck--! Is that all your blood?!" A very green-looking pair of maidens were staring at him, aghast.

"Most of it is," he grinned. "Might you point me towards the nearest stream or pond?"

One of the maidens held back a shriek, only just, as Lancelot emerged to stand behind him, covered in blood down the front of him and halfway up to his elbows. "Is that--?"

Gawain glanced back at him, pleased to have focus off himself. "The famous Lancelot? Only on alternating Tuesdays. The rest of the time, he's--"

"Also covered in your blood, apparently," the first maiden beat him to the punchline. "How are you still alive?"

He raised an eyebrow, annoyed. "Clean living. Plenty of sleep. A healthy diet. Look, can you just point me to--"

The maidens both pointed in the same direction, into the woods.

"Thank you most kindly."

They walked away with many backward glances, whispering to each other. "Maybe he's losing his edge."

"We're all going to die, aren't we," the other agreed.

Gawain looked up at the forest canopy for a long time, hands on his hips, wondering if the Hidden would heal his reputation as they repeatedly healed his body.

"That didn't go quite as you planned," Lancelot couldn't help but point out.

He glanced over at him, silently daring him to continue. When it looked like he might, Gawain brandished a finger at him. "Don't."

"I just-"

"Don't."

Lancelot pretended to sigh in exasperation, but smiled when Gawain started away towards the water.

Yes, they were definitely in it together, now.


	9. Horse, Interrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goliath gets cheeky

The evening found him in the "stable" -- little more than a hastily constructed corral -- trying to get a moment of peace and quiet. He understood and did not resent the agreement he had made, but his tent mate was so touch starved and driven to please that he couldn't get time alone, something that he was altogether unaccustomed to.

So he took Gringolet from the pen and tethered him to a tree, brushed him down, checked for wounds and sores, picked his feet clean, and set to work carefully trimming his hooves. It was intense enough physical work to support the horse's balance while holding a foot and a tool, that it left him with a sense of accomplishment. And Gringolet was always good and patient company.

When he released Gringolet back into the pen, he noticed Goliath waiting at the gate, watching him. 

"You too?"

Goliath tossed his head and snorted.

"Very well." He held out the halter, which the horse politely slipped his head through, and fastened it, tied the lead to it, and let him out of the gate.

Goliath obediently stood with his head low and his ears relaxed, and let Gawain brush him down, patiently untangle some knots in his mane, pick his feet, and check his hooves. He was midway through addressing the start of a split when he realized he was being watched.

"He's never been that relaxed with anyone," Lancelot commented softly. He materialized out of the shadows and took Goliath's face in his hands, rubbing the soft fur of his nose and forehead gently.

"You're out on your own?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "If anyone asks, I was with you the whole time."

Gawain finished sanding the split flat and took more time than was strictly necessary to examine his work. Then he released the foot and let Goliath stand on his own weight. He shook his shirt out, resigned to dust and the smell of horse for the next few days.

Lancelot was whispering to the horse, who sniffed and softly knickered back. It was as if they were having a conversation.

"He's quite a beast," he complimented politely. "There's not a scratch on him, either."

"No, I haven't told him," Lancelot said-- to the horse? "I thought you would."

"Can he keep a secret?" Goliath asked.

Gawain startled and spun around, looking into the trees and the pen and then finally at Lancelot, who was suspiciously not alarmed.

The horse looked like it was laughing at him.

"What--"

"Goliath is a nightmare," Lancelot offered helpfully. "A kind of forest wraith. He's quite friendly."

Gawain stared, aghast. "You-- he-- what--"

"Don't worry, I don't eat people. I eat dreams." He made chewing motions with his mouth. "Mwahahaha."

The knight narrowed his eyes and approached them both fearlessly. "You brought a forest wraith into my camp?"

"You brought a tracker assassin into your camp," Lancelot pointed out.

Gawain tipped his head to the side, one eyebrow raised in consideration. "That's fair." He nodded to Goliath. "Very well. It certainly isn't the strangest thing to ever happen. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Goliath."

"Pleased to make yours. Conveniently we've already shaken hands." He stamped a foot on the ground. "You never mentioned he was so gentle and strong," he teased Lancelot, bumping him with his nose.

Lancelot sighed, took the lead rope from its place on the tree and pulled Goliath towards the pen. 

"Hey come on," he objected, but went into the pen and offered his head so the halter could be removed. "No fair, I have to stay in the pen all night while you're getting to stay with that pair of hands."

Lancelot walked away, blushing hard. "Bloody horse."

Gawain trotted after him, halfway between shock and amusement. "So wait, you have the ability to track us by smell, a wraith for a horse, and a lifetime of weapons training, and you had an army of death-cult nihilists at your back?"

"I... guess you could put it like that," he allowed, unsure of where the conversation was going.

"Oh good. I thought I was doing poorly, not keeping ahead of you." Gawain slapped him on the shoulder amiably.

Lancelot smirked. "Your petty insecurities will never fail to surprise me."

He pouted, hurt.

"You're so obviously a master of all you do, that everyone but you sees it." He leaned over and gently jostled him with an elbow. "Even my horse."

Gawain made a face. "He did seem rather complimentary."

"He has a bit of a crush on you."

"He does?" But that wasn't the question he wanted to ask.

Lancelot smirked at him infuriatingly and went into the tent.

Gawain bounced on the balls of his feet anxiously. He hadn't felt quite like this... ever. But he was old enough to know what it meant. It was a rare treat and also a divine inconvenience.

He had asked the Hidden for the ash man's redemption, for his safety, for his presence at his side. What would it hurt, to ask them for one thing more?


End file.
